Just days after I watched a movie (which I had assumed) identified the real Deep Throat of the Watergate scandal, someone else comes forward and claims that he is the real Deep Throat.
As I was preparing a post on the topic, I read James Taranto’s Best of the Web. His thoughts are quite similar to my own:
President Nixon’s fall, after all, was a triumph for liberal Democrats and muckraking journalists–a triumph neither group has managed to equal since. . . . .
Yet consider what has happened in the years since Watergate. The Democratic Party suffered a series of electoral defeats and today is arguably in its weakest position since before the New Deal. During the same period, the press has seen a steady erosion in its public esteem.
This is in part because both the Democrats and the press learned the “lessons of Watergate” too well. The press is constantly seeking the next scandal, and the Democrats and the liberal left have taken to portraying policy disagreements as criminal coverups–the impulse behind both the Iran-contra scandal and the Valerie Plame kerfuffle.
More than thirty years ago, many Democrats, then the majority in both houses of Congress, as well as the mainstream media hated then-President Nixon with the same venom that many today seem to hate President Bush.
The media’s success in proving Nixon was the corrupt politician they believed him to be seems to color the attitudes of many of the current president’s opponents today. They seem to believe that if they disagree with a Republican who achieves electoral success, he must be corrupt. Nixon was. And his actions hurt our great nation as well as his political party.
While the Washington Post may claim that Mark Felt is the real Deep Throat, I still believe it was Betsy and Arlene. Go out and watch Dick and you’ll see why. It’s far more entertaining than some article in Vanity Fair.
UPDATE: (06-02-05). In this morning’s Wall Street Journal, the editors build on the points that James Taranto raised in his Best of the Web column:
Messrs. Woodward and Bernstein earned their fame, but the consequences for journalism have not always been salutary. In their zeal to be the next Woodstein, many in the press have developed a “gotcha” model of reporting that always assumes the worst about public officials. We’ve pointed this out recently about reporting on Iraq and the military, and the defensive reaction from our peers confirms to us that many recognize (even if they won’t publicly admit) that there is a problem. The unveiling of Deep Throat, and the rediscovery of Watergate’s history, will do some good if it reminds us that the Fourth Estate’s first duty is to report the facts.
UPDATE #2: Ben Stein offers a view Deep Throat that is well worth reading. Hat tip: Polipundit.